Lithuanian film industry to be showcased in Cannes

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

The anniversary 70th Cannes Film Festival will be opened today with Lithuanian elements in its programme. Representatives of the Lithuanian film industry will also attend the “Marché du Film” film market organised by the festival on May 17–26.

The Lithuanian pavilion will showcase the advantages of the tax incentives and shooting opportunities in Lithuania. It will facilitate networking with potential partners from Lithuania. The Lithuanian Film Centre's publications Shoot in Lithuania and Lithuanian Films that contain additional useful information about film projects and production services will be available to take away, the Lithuanian Film Centre wrote in a press release.

The latest film Frost from the leading Lithuanian filmmaker Šarūnas Bartas has been selected for the festival's programme section "Quinzaine des Realisateurs". This will be the global premiere of the motion picture, which tells about a young Lithuanian man Rokas who has never been in a war, but has been raised in the shadow of one. On a humanitarian mission from Vilnius to Ukraine he also embarks on a journey of sacrifice. The young man's desire to go even further takes him to the front line in Donetsk where he finds a metaphysical connection with love in the ruins left by human hatred and violence. The film stars the French actress Vanessa Paradis, the famous Polish actor Andrzej Chyra, and Mantas Jančiauskas. It is a Lithuanian, Ukrainian, French and Polish co-production.

The competition programme will feature a French, German, Russian, Dutch and Lithuanian co-production Gentle Creature directed by Sergei Loznitsa. The picture tells about a woman from a small Russian town who receives a returned package she had sent to her jailed spouse. In order to find out why the package has not been delivered, she travels to the prison in an outlying location in Russia beginning a story of humiliation and violence.

Special screenings for film industry professionals will include Eglė Vertelytė's film Miracle that will reach Lithuanian film theatres at the end of the year. The authors of the picture hope to pitch their work to international distributors, sales agents, festival programmers and other film professionals.

Rita Stanelytė, the head of the "Kino pavasaris" festival's industry event, have received invitations to help assess the films of the "Directors' Fortnight" programme section. She will participate in the jury as members of the CICAE confederation.

Film project New Baltic Wave will be presented by one of the film's producers Arūnas Matelis at the "Vilnius Goes to Cannes" project development programme at the "Marché du Film" market. This film won the ticket to the Cannes during the spring film industry event "Meeting Point – Vilnius", where it was judged to be one of the most promising international film projects currently in production. Co-produced by Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians, it is one of the several projects dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Lithuanian independence. The film focuses on the poetic documentary style of the three Baltic countries, which is rich in metaphor, has an innovative visual language, and embarks on a quest for associative thinking. The film also speaks about the filmmakers who have broken the tradition of propaganda film in the 1960s Soviet Union.

This is the 5th year in a row when a programme of Lithuanian short films has been included in the festival's "Short Film Corner". It consists of seven short films and animations made in 2016 and 2017 – Watchkeeping (dir. by Karolis Kaupinis), The Mother's Day (dir. by Kamilė Milašiūtė), Running Lights (dir. by Gediminas Šiaulys), Last Stop Is The Moon (dir. by Birutė Sodeikaitė), Bathhouse (dir. by Laurynas Bareiša), 8 Minutes (dir. by Dovilė Šarutytė), and Sigis (dir. by Tomas Gvozdas). The programme was prepared by the Lithuanian short film agency "Lithuanian Shorts".The showcase of Lithuanian film industry at the Cannes Film Festival has been organised and funded by the Lithuanian Film Centre.